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Best Of ShAFF - Ocean Epics

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Sheffield is pretty much at the geographical centre of the UK so we don’t get to experience much sea-faring action. Don’t worry, ShAFF is bringing to you a pair of films depicting epics on the oceans.

Solo

On January 11, 2007, Andrew McAuley set out on his quest to become the first person to kayak from Australia to New Zealand across 1600km (1000 miles) of one of the wildest and loneliest stretches of ocean on Earth. Thirty days later, New Zealand maritime authorities received his distress call. Having survived a harrowing and torturous month at sea, conquering monstrous swells and terrifying storms, McAuley lost his life only a day from completing his journey. While his body was never recovered, the camera tapes from his kayak were and they form the basis of this moving and questioning portrait of a complex man, his family, his supporters and his attempt to conquer the impossible.

The Ocean Rider

French-Swiss sailor Yvan Bourgnon - a pillar of the offshore race and winner of the Jacques Vabre transatlantic race - is making a mad bet: to complete the first round-the-world tour, alone, on a catamaran without cockpit, a boat the size of a beach sailboat.

220 days and 55'000km at sea, without being able to shelter from the elements. A tightrope walker, alone with his camera, he confronts a shipwreck, storms, pirates, the cold, the heat, but also enjoys innumerable moments of happiness and success. An immersion in a long and difficult adventure that Yvan Bourgnon, like an artist, makes accessible, comfortable, almost poetic. An adventure that also highlights the worrying issue of pollution and the preservation of the oceans, a cause for which Yvan Bourgnon is now actively involved, with his project The Sea Cleaners.